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When Socialist intellectual John Strachey was appointed as Secretary of State for War in 1950, his pre-war record as a Marxist writer with close connections to the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) became a matter of public debate. A bitter campaign was run against him in the Beaverbrook press, and some members of the US defense and nuclear establishment pressed for an embargo on sensitive information being passed to the UK War Office. American suspicion of the political reliability of the Labour government was heightened by the appointment, but this does not explain how and why some Americans were so hostile to Strachey. The FBI's dossier on his pre-war activities, circulated amongst his American critics, documented Strachey's supposed secret membership of the CPGB's Central Committee. MI5 and Special Branch files show that this supposition was based on faulty intelligence. The readiness of American anti-Soviet protagonists to lend credence to such suspicions contrasts with the relaxed view of Strachey's past that was taken in Whitehall. Both positions were characteristic of their time, and of this stage in the Anglo-American alliance. This paper explores the ways in which American insecurities and a British climate of tolerance towards fellow travellers shaped the way that episode played out. Adapted from the source document.

This article revisits the creation of NSC 68, a landmark in Cold War history, in the light of continuing historical debates and with the assistance of archival material recently made available. The article reviews the historiography of NSC 68, including controversies over the language adopted, together with recent writings that stress a broader political economy analysis of U.S. foreign policy. The article revisits the contested issue of whether NSC 68 represented continuity with past policy or a sharp departure from it. In addressing this issue, the article looks closely at the style and tone of the document as well as its impact on the U.S. defense budget and finally its convergence with the other transformative decision of the time, the commitment of resources to the development of the hydrogen bomb.

This article revisits the creation of NSC 68, a landmark in Cold War history, in the light of continuing historical debates and with the assistance of archival material recently made available. The article reviews the historiography of NSC 68, including controversies over the language adopted, together with recent writings that stress a broader political economy analysis of U.S. foreign policy. The article revisits the contested issue of whether NSC 68 represented continuity with past policy or a sharp departure from it. In addressing this issue, the article looks closely at the style and tone of the document as well as its impact on the U.S. defense budget and finally its convergence with the other transformative decision of the time, the commitment of resources to the development of the hydrogen bomb. Adapted from the source document.